


alas, poor yorick. i knew him well.

by psycho_pomp



Category: Owlboy (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23962471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psycho_pomp/pseuds/psycho_pomp
Summary: the world is whole again.the day is saved.and there is nothing left to bury.there was never going to be anything left to bury.so you will have to make something to bury.a post-game alphonse character study.
Relationships: Alphonse & Dirk (Owlboy)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	alas, poor yorick. i knew him well.

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys remember when i said my next work would be fluff?? sorry in advance

the world is whole again.

the day is saved.

and there is nothing left to bury.

there was never going to be anything left to bury.

so you decide to make something to bury.

a screw from the second joint in your ring finger on your left hand.

(you're right-handed anyhow)

a wire or two plucked from your neck.

(it hurts a bit and your neck is stiffer now, but you don't mind)

one of the buttons from your coat.

(you can always get another)

but it's missing something.

* * *

master geddy is a bit bewildered when you ask him if he could point you in the direction of where you'd be able to have a knife custom-made, but as soon as you explain that you are planning a memorial, not a murder, he is much less wary.

strix is able to help you with it, having a rather large web of connections.

when he asks for the material they will make the knife from, you offer a metal plate, one you'd wrested from your side the night before, as well as your notes on how you wanted it designed.

it is a few days before it is completed and returned to you, as everyone is still putting their lives back together in this strange new world, but soon enough you hold it in your hand, thumb tracing that round dip in the blade's edge, and wishing for a strange moment that it would cut you, and you would bleed.

that you could repay your debt.

you put the thought away, and set the dagger, an imperfect replica but the best you can offer him, into a small chest with the screws and the wires and the buttons.

you realize, feeling a bit silly, you forgot to bring a shovel, but digging with your bare hands is not so hard as a large metal automaton, though you'll certainly need master geddy to take your hand apart to get the small rocks out from between the joints.

you place the box in the shallow hole, and lay a hand on it.

you think about when you were grabbed from the ruins of the amphitheater, still smoking and crumbling from the bombs the pirates had dropped on it.

you think about one of the first missions you were on together, bullying a frontier community into giving up their working automatons, and you'd convinced him not to hurt anyone, instead winning them over by promising a cut of the spoils, as repayment for their generous donation, a deal that you would later learn had not been honored.

you think about him laughing and teasing you, asking if you were sure you were made of titanium and not aluminum, and you laughed and said you'd show him aluminum, picking him up with ease and ruffling that golden ribbon loose, his normally tightly-braided ponytail flowing everywhere.

you think about the crackling and sparking of malfunctioning systems, electricity arcing off broken circuits like a thunderstorm.

* * *

you remove your hand from the box.

a few short seconds of pushing dirt and patting it down, and it's gone.

strange, isn't it, you muse, how it can take so much to make something, yet so little for it to be gone forever.

you do have a headstone, you aren't that forgetful.

a slab of metal (thankfully not from your body this time, master geddy had given it to you, along with his condolences) with a wide open eye engraved at the top.

decades from now, no one will know it's significance.

no one will grieve over it.

no one will remember.

no one but you.

you think he'd prefer it that way.


End file.
